


A Small Eternity

by sidewalkchalk



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), It's about the 6000 years, It's about the softness, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewalkchalk/pseuds/sidewalkchalk
Summary: Crowley had asked a hundred times over for Aziraphale to run away with him, to anywhere really— they could go to Alpha Centauri and create their own private universe. But when Aziraphale had said no, he should have stayed.





	A Small Eternity

There are times, Crowley knows, where a century can roar past so quickly that immortality seems divorced from time. And then there are times, where moments drip like water from a leaky faucet, and he thinks eternity might just be a single moment after all. 

The bookshop looks almost as before, thanks to Adam’s generous restoration, but it still doesn’t feel quite right. Crowley knows that, despite Adam’s best efforts, there are still books on the wrong shelves, still books that are new, still books that are missing. It shouldn’t bother him: As Aziraphale is quick to remind him, he doesn’t even read. (Yes, he knows about indices but what of it? He’s an immortal being, of course he knows reference books should have indices). But there’s something itching at him, something that feels unsettled and out of place.

“What are you thinking about, my dear?” Aziraphale asks. He looks up from his book, placing it next to a mug of cocoa that has long since gone cold.

Crowley blinks, then shrugs. “Got to get home and water my plants. They’re due for a scare.”

“Oh, please Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “I’ve known you too long to believe that.”

And that’s it, Crowley thinks, that’s the crux of it. After 6000 years, that day in the garden still feels like yesterday. They’ve lived life times in the years they’ve known each another. Hell, they’ve lived through end times. But line up 6000 years against eternity, and the measurement disappears. Divide six million by infinity and the quotient still falls to zero.

And if 6000 years is nothing, well, what was 100 years? Rewind to 1967, an even closer yesterday. “You go too fast for me,” Aziraphale had said, meeting Crowley’s eyes until Crowley had felt something in his chest crack. Even then, Aziraphale had been the one to look away. Aziraphale left the car so quickly and closed the door so quietly that for a moment Crowley thought he might have discorporated. But when it came to it, the 100 years Aziraphale took to cave to Crowley’s request for holy water was just spare change.

“Really,” Crowley says, “It’s nothing.”

Aziraphale gives him a long look, then sighs slightly. “If you say so, my dear,” he says, turning back to his book.

“It’s just—” Crowley starts, before trailing off into uncharacteristic silence. Aziraphale looks at him, waiting. “Does something feel different to you?”

“I suppose a bit,” Aziraphale says with a shrug. “I don’t know, I don’t much mind. Adam restored the shop more accurately than I could’ve hoped.”

I don’t mean the bookstore, Crowley wants to say. Don’t you know I don’t mean the bookstore?

Crowley is quiet for long enough that when he glances at Aziraphale again, he has returned to his book. The bookstore does look almost the same, restored much more accurately than one would expect from an 11-year old, even an 11-year old antichrist. But how could it ever feel the same? How could anything ever feel the same, after running into a burning bookshop and realizing that, in all his attempts to save his angel, he hadn’t been there the one time he needed to be? 

He’d never minded fire (he was a demon after all), but the flames were scorching him, and he felt like his body wasn’t really his (it wasn’t, not really, just an allocation from hell), and he was a demon, and clearly he couldn’t do good, couldn’t be good, couldn’t be anything but evil really. Words torn from his throat: “Somebody killed my best friend!” 

He should’ve been there, he knew he should’ve been there. With burning lungs (he didn’t need to breathe but he had earned this) and skin that cracked and burned in the flickering heat (the same story), he raced through the building and screamed for Aziraphale until eventually he knew:

Aziraphale was gone, and it was entirely his fault.

And yes, Aziraphale had come back, but what if he hadn’t? Crowley had run away when he should’ve stayed. Sure, he’d asked Aziraphale to come with him (hell, he had asked a hundred times over for Aziraphale to run away with him, to anywhere really— they could go to Alpha Centauri and create their own private universe), but when Aziraphale had said no, he should have stayed.

For the first time in 6000 years, Crowley realizes that eternity isn’t truly endless. He looks at Aziraphale, sitting primly in his armchair, a loose strand of hair curling softly against his forehead, his eyes focused on the page in front of him. He knows he could never forgive himself if he let eternity end without any sort of explanation. (Crowley does not know what comes after eternity, but he knows it is not forgiveness, not for this.)

“Angel,” Crowley says carefully, “you know that we’ve known each other a long time.”

Aziraphale looks up slowly. “We have,” he says.

“And you know that in that time we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well,” he continues.

“I do,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley was sure that, if this moment ever happened, he could be suave. After all, who was more suave than he? No one, that was who. So it came as somewhat of a shock (to him), that he stumbled over his words.

“Angel, it’s just… I know you can’t feel the same way about me, I understand that, I get it, really, I do, it’s fine, but I just needed you to know.”

“Needed me to know what?” Aziraphale says, and really, Crowley thought, was that not enough?

Crowley briefly considers morphing into a snake and slithering from the room. It seems like a good use of a miracle. But no, he can be suave, he can meet Aziraphale’s gaze. He looks down. “That I love you.”

Crowley hears a rustle of fabric and the creak of furniture under shifting weight. Soft footsteps patter across creaking floorboards, and Crowley feels the couch beside him shift slightly under new weight. A gentle touch tilts his chin upward until his eyes meet Aziraphale’s.

“You love me?” he says. He looks like he is on the verge of a smile, but no, Crowley thought, he could never be so cruel. Could he?

Crowley breathes deeply as a shiver climbs nerve by nerve up his back. He never should have brought this up. What was he thinking, telling Aziraphale he loved him? He isn’t worthy of loving him. He would ruin everything. He already has. An ache that he cannot miracle away has settled in his stomach.

“Like I said, I know you don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine,” Crowley says, averting his eyes to focus on a speck on the wall to Aziraphale’s left. Had there been a spot there before? It seems odd to have included a flaw in the bookstore restoration. Why wouldn’t it be pristine, heavenly even?

“My dear,” says Aziraphale, softly. “My dear Anthony.”

His voice is so gentle that Crowley can’t help it. He risks a look upward.

“You think that I don’t feel the same? You think that I don’t love you?”

“It’s okay,” Crowley says, fighting to keep his voice light. “Loving a demon would go against your angelic duty and all that.” If his voice cracked a little, well, hopefully Aziraphale hadn’t noticed.

“Well, that’s certainly not true,” Aziraphale says, “what exactly is un-angelic about love? But that doesn’t matter,” he pauses, “because completely unrelated to my angelic duty, I love you, too.”

Crowley blinks. “You what?”

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale says. “Really, you didn’t know?”

“No, of course not, why would I know that?” Crowley says, and his voice isn’t shaking, not at all. “I don’t even know that now. You’re just doing that angel thing where you try to make me feel better, or you’re playing some kind of joke on me and you have even more bastard in you than I thought you did. And if so, good on you! Good to see you embracing the full span of your personality at last!” 

“Anthony,” Aziraphale says, gently. “My love, look at me.” 

Crowley doesn’t look up.

“Anthony, please,” and when it comes to it, Crowley could never not do what Aziraphale asked of him. His eyes are so earnest and gentle, Crowley wonders how Aziraphale can look at him like that and still manage to lie.

“You are everything to me,” Aziraphale says. “Everything. I love you with every fiber of my being. Really, truly, I do. I’ve loved you for millennia. I think maybe I always have.”

Crowley almost believes him. 

“But how?” he asks, an edge to his voice. “How could you possibly love me? You’re you,” he says, gesturing wildly at Aziraphale. “And I’m, well,” he shrugs. “I’m not good.”

“You are,” Aziraphale says. “You are good.” 

“I’m a demon,” Crowley says. “I can’t be good. It’s not in my nature.”

“You are good,” says Aziraphale. “You are good, and you are kind, and you are gentle, even if you refuse to believe it about yourself. How many times have you saved me over the years? How many times have you done little kind miracles just because you could? Goodness, Crowley, when was the last time you caused any real harm? You’ve just been taking hell’s commendations for the things humans do to themselves.”

“Maybe I’m just being manipulative,” Crowley said, but a soft film is blurring his vision, and well, isn’t that something, he thinks, a demon crying over kindness.

“You’re not,” says Aziraphale. “Really, my dear, I’ve known you for 6000 years, do you really think I’m that easily fooled?”

Crowley gulps, and a dam in him breaks, pressure bursting forth from years of trying (however unsuccessfully) to hold back the river of love that runs through him, trying to express it only in ways that could be denied. No, Aziraphale, I did that for myself, for me only. Saving you was just to save myself work down the line, it’s part of our agreement after all. Words he had never said, could never have meant, but they were a believable motive, were they not? That deniability is a log swept away in the current.

“What can I even offer you?” Crowley says. “I failed you. I’ll fail you again.”

Aziraphale raises a finger to Crowley’s cheek, gently wipes away a tear. “Oh darling,” he says. He pulls Crowley into him, and Crowley leans in, resting his head on his chest. “You could never fail me,” Aziraphale says, combing a hand through Crowley’s hair. “And you don’t always have to be the one doing the protecting, you know.”

When Crowley finally lifts his eyes upward, Aziraphale’s gaze is softer than it’s ever been.

Yes, Crowley thinks, eternity really is a moment after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in years, truly feels great. Nothing like diving back in with Good Omens!


End file.
